They Aren’t Going Anywhere!
I’m quite sure I have a million opinions about social and political issues. I’m also sure I have a handful of unique, if not original things to say. (At least they are original in my tiny section of the world.) I believe that I am right on a lot of things, I am fuzzy on a bunch more, and I’m downright stubbornly clinging to a few outdated ideas for which I have not heard a convincing argument to the contrary. There is a concept I think about over and over, and it applies to all sections of the ideological spectrum.
We are in a divisive time. (Duh.) We need to be able to speak with each other without screaming. (No shit.) There are more things we have in common than are different from one another. There are extremists with microphones and internet connections and there a shitload of confused people in the middle with a lot of bad information floating around. I get it. Most of us get it. I truly believe that. I know I talk about how unbelievably dumb we are as a culture, but I really think there is an undercurrent of common sense that holds us together. It just gets blurred and sidetracked from time to time.
What we have to keep it mind until we can enter into a more rational age, is that no one is going to win or lose. There will be special interests that gain some ground, and some that lose some, but there will be no victors. Why? Because despite what your motivational speaker said, life is not a fucking game. Is not analogous to a game or a race or a competition. It’s much more complicated than any game. Even Risk.
The bedrock of my belief is that all those people you oppose; all the ones that vote the opposite way or protest the thing you believe in… aren’t going anywhere. They aren’t. They will all be there tomorrow. The goal is not to win or defeat your opponent because those people won’t just sit around and be losers forever. There will be another day. The sun will rise. You see how the analogy doesn’t work? We’re not pieces on a board. We’re humans with complicated and ever-changing lives. We don’t fade away if we lose, like slain aliens in a Halo game. We wake up the next morning, believing want to believe, caring about what we care about. You can’t win. You have to figure out how to work with those that oppose you. Why? Because they aren’t going anywhere.
Whites? Blacks aren’t going anywhere. Blacks? Whites aren’t going anywhere. Rich people? Poor people aren’t going anywhere. Poor people? You bet your ass there will always be rich people. Gay and Queer? Straight? Left? Right? Dumb? Smart? Men? Women? Adults? Kids? North? South? East? West? Red? Blue? Faithful? Atheist? Old? Young? Healthy? Sick? Love? Hate? Yankees? Red Sox?
On September 2, 1945, we signed a peace treaty with Japan that ended the war in the Pacific. Between both sides, there were hundreds of thousands of deaths. Hundreds of thousands that spanned over ten years. But on one day, after the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, they ceased hostilities. That is considered a win. But the real story of the rise of two of the three biggest economies in the world is the collaboration in the post war period. After all this life and death conflict, we learned to work with each other and thrive. In one decade, we were murdering each other. The next, we were making toys together. If that’s true, then don’t you think we can find a way to come to an agreement over immigration? Kneeling NFL players? President Dipshit?
We talk because fighting isn’t cool. Arguing is part of talking. Arguing isn’t a sign of a crumbling democracy. It’s just the opposite.
Just remember, the guy you disagree with isn’t a foe to be vanquished. You won’t win because there is no winning. There’s just living. Living with yourself and living with your neighbors. It’s the only answer because they aren’t going anywhere.